Green Design

s design

oklahoma city ok

Like many design firms across the nation, S Design Inc.
embraced the idea of sustainability in the early 2000s.
With recycled and wind-power produced paper options, soy inks and digital printing, the group’s designers began promoting the ideas that print could and should be produced responsibly and that the best design choices always considered the impact on resources and the environment.

Fast forward to 2013 and today the firm’s clients are now often championing the cause long before the design process – asking for help in creating mindful, sustainable communication solutions that begin with overall strategy rather than simply start and end in production.
As a result, the design firm has partnered with several organizations to develop communication plans and strategies that have the greatest possible impact on their audiences with the least amount of damage to the eco-system.
Clients like Wilderness Matters, a non-profit dedicated to providing authentic natural experiences to disabled individuals; Verbode, an eco-conscious real-estate firm; and the Oklahoma City Brownfields Program, a government agency that provides grants and oversight for individuals to reclaim abandoned and hazardous real estate, all have raised the firm’s standards when it comes to designing for sustainability.

As Principal Sarah Sears explains: “In the past, we often had to encourage our clients to spend a little more on production in order to be more sustainable.
Today, we are thrilled to partner with clients whose priorities are well-established even before we meet.
They have challenged us to come up with creative marketing plans that result in effective messaging – often without ever having to print more than a business card and always allowing us to dig deeper into the ever-evolving interactive world as we explore options for messaging.”

Wilderness Matters is a 501c3 non-profit organization working to remove barriers and ensure that all people – disabled and able-bodied – can actively engage with and experience the outdoors.
Founder Jack McMahan, outdoor enthusiast and quadriplegic, along with co-founder Peter Hoffman, approached S Design to develop a marketing plan that communicated the cause, reached thousands of advocates and attracted donors, but did so with a limited impact on both resources and budget.
A digitally-heavy strategy began with an interactive and social media plan, but, at first, included a variety of print pieces that could effectively communicate with the non-profit's wide range of audiences.
Jack and Peter challenged the firm to create a single print piece, no larger than 5x7, that would appeal to all of its potential audiences ‒ from the completely uniformed to the most enthusiastic advocate or donor.
With careful content selection and thoughtful copywriting, S Design produced a single brochure that beautifully (and concisely) represents the group’s cause, while keeping production waste to a minimum.